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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..354756e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #55963 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55963) diff --git a/old/55963-8.txt b/old/55963-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5b8f8e2..0000000 --- a/old/55963-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1695 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shepherd Singing Ragtime and Other Poems, by -Louis Golding - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Shepherd Singing Ragtime and Other Poems - -Author: Louis Golding - -Release Date: November 14, 2017 [EBook #55963] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHEPHERD SINGING RAGTIME *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - - SHEPHERD SINGING - RAGTIME - - AND OTHER POEMS - - BY - - LOUIS GOLDING - - - - LONDON - CHRISTOPHERS - 32 BERNERS STREET, W. 1 - - - - - BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - SORROW OF WAR: POEMS - FORWARD FROM BABYLON - - - - - FOR JACK - - KILLED IN FRANCE, APRIL THE FIFTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED - AND EIGHTEEN - - - - - CONTENTS - - Numbers - Ploughman at the Plough - Creed - The Starry Lady - When the Great Arm of a Tree Bends Stooping - The Moon-Clock - Unnamed Fruit - Portrait of an Artist - Shepherd Singing Ragtime - Skylark Noon - The Singer of High State - Bird, Bird, Bird - Green Beads - The Wind, Whence Blowing - Lady of Babylon - This is the Happy Husband, This is He - Cold Branch in the Black Air - Ghosts Gathering - Lyric in Gloom - I Seek a Wild Star - My Lady of Peace - Our Jack - Peace - Silver-Badged Waiter - Sunset over Suburb - Shrift among Hills - Courage the Dreamers - - - - - NUMBERS - - Three sheep graze on the low hill - Beneath the shadow of five trees. - Three sheep! - Five old sycamores! - (The noon is very full of sleep. - The noon's a shepherd kind and still. - The noon's a shepherd takes his ease - Beneath the shadow of five trees, - Five old sycamores.) - Three sheep graze on the low hill. - Down in the grass in twos and fours - Cows are munching in the field. - Three sheep graze on the low hill; - Bless them, Lord, to give me wool. - Cows are munching in the field; - Bless them that their teats be full. - Bless the sheep and cows to yield - Wool to keep my children warm, - Milk that they should grow therefrom. - - Three sheep graze on the low hill, - Beneath five sycamores. - Cows are munching in the field. - All in twos and fours. - - On an elm-tree far aloof - There are nine-and-twenty crows, - Croaking to the blue sky roof - Fifteen hundred ancient woes. - - In a cracked deserted house, - Six owls cloaked with age and dream, - In a cracked deserted house, - Six owls wait upon a beam, - Wait for the nocturnal mouse. - - In the stackyard at my farm - There are fourteen stacks of hay. - Lord, I pray - Keep my golden goods from harm, - Fourteen shining stacks of hay! - - Fourteen shining stacks of hay, - Six owls, nine-and-twenty crows, - Three sheep grazing on the hill - Beneath five sycamores, - Fat cows munching in a field, - All in twos and fours, - Fat cows munching in a field, - Fourteen shining stacks of hay. - - At a table in a room - Where beyond the window-frames - Glows the sweet geranium, - At a table in a room - My three children play their games - Till their father-poet come, - Stop a moment, listen, wait - Till a father-poet come. - Lovely ones of lovely names, - He shall not come late. - - Fourteen shining stacks of hay, - Six owls, nine-and-twenty crows, - Fifteen hundred ancient woes, - Three sheep grazing on the hill, - Beneath five sycamores, - Fat cows munching in a field - All in twos and fours, - Fourteen shining stacks of hay, - My three lovely children, one - Mother laughing like the sun, - Sweetheart laughing like the sun - When the baby laughters run. - - Now the goal I sought is won, - Sweetheart laughing like the sun, - Now the goal I sought is won, - Sweet, my song is done. - - - - - PLOUGHMAN AT THE PLOUGH - - He behind the straight plough stands - Stalwart, firm shafts in firm hands. - - Naught he cares for wars and naught - For the fierce disease of thought. - - Only for the winds, the sheer - Naked impulse of the year, - - Only for the soil which stares - Clean into God's face he cares. - - In the stark might of his deed - There is more than art or creed; - - In his wrist more strength is hid - Than the monstrous Pyramid; - - Stauncher than stern Everest - Be the muscles of his breast; - - Not the Atlantic sweeps a flood - Potent as the ploughman's blood. - - He, his horse, his ploughshare, these - Are the only verities. - - Dawn to dusk with God he stands, - The Earth poised on his broad hands. - - - - - CREED - - I shall insistently and proudly read - Into the mud of things a mudless creed, - Out of mud fashioning a palace so - Clamant with beauty and superb with snow, - That in this glory shall men's eyes be blurred, - Stars be made slaves to this most potent Word. - I in thick mud shall hear swift stars proclaim - The intolerable splendour of the Name. - I in a beetle's nerves shall search and find - The processes of the chaos-cleaving mind, - On my clock's second-fingers I shall see - The tidal journeyings of Eternity. - - - - - THE STARRY LADY - - Now with anger, - Pomp and royal clangour, - Now where his Lady is - Starry with her crown; - Now the hills waking from the day's languor, - Now with many instruments in puissant harmonies, - The sun goes down. - - Now rivers splendid - Now song attended - Throw ranks of music forward to the sea. - Now hills like vocal moons - Blow their prolonged bassoons - Forth where the Monarch swoons, - After long labour ended, - Swoons for his Lady--ah starry she! - - From dim clouds wheeling - Song down comes stealing - Round flowers whose petals shaking - Silver of song are making; - Round the grand bronze of trees - Whose trumpets pealing - Peal through the sunset till - Flower, tree and cloud and hill - Fuse in the splendour of song that girdles the seas. - - The Sun now is set--and now - Lips on her calm cool brow! - Now there is heaping - Of star-dust steeping - With deep and drowsy scents - Their bodies sleeping. - - Quiet now, quiet, - Of golden instruments! - Now still, most shadowy still - Are cloud and hill; - Still, in this solemn hour - Lie cloud and flower; - Still, most shadowy still - Lie cloud and tree. - Now under tranquil skies, - Far, far the Monarch lies - Lone with his starry Lady--ah starry she! - - - - - WHEN THE GREAT ARM OF - A TREE BENDS STOOPING - - When the great arm of a tree bends stooping - Across the dark road ... - Beware, beware! - Beware lest fingers searching, scooping - Snatch up your body by your hair, - Beware! - Think this no leafing clod, - Insensible clay! - Know you that through long ages in tense calm - This tree hath held its arm, - The instinct fingers nerved by most high God: - Until you knowing nought - Because of thick false thought, - You came, frail fool, treading a secure way. - - When the great arm of a tree bends stooping - Across the dark road ... - Beware! - Beware lest fingers meet within your hair, - A stern arm clasp you round, - Bear you from the ground; - And you shall be held tight - Against a bloodless breast - Till human blood be pressed - From finger-nails and eyes, - And all the little cries - Your lips gave forth of old - Shall now no more arise - Where you hang cold, - Where you hang dry and stark - Against the granite dark, - Frozenly upright; - And deeper, deeper you - Shall thick leaves hide from view, - Your dead limbs shall be sunk - Down further through the trunk, - And all your veins shall wrap - Channels of flowing sap, - Your brain and lungs and blood - Shall be stiff wood, - Till you at last shall be - The cold heart of a tree. - - Beware! - When the great arm of a tree bends stooping - Across the dark road.... - - - - - THE MOON-CLOCK - - (_For Alan Porter_) - - Tick-tock! the moon, that pale round clock - Her big face peering, goes tick-tock! - - Metallic as a grasshopper - The faint far tickings start and stir. - - All night tinily you can hear - Tick-tock tinkling down the sheer - - Steep falls of space. Minute, aloof, - Here is no praise, here no reproof. - - Remote in voids star-purged of sense, - Tick-tock in stark indifference! - - From ice-black lands of lack and rock, - The two swords shake and clank tick-tock. - - In the dark din of the day's vault - Demand thy headlong soul shall halt - - One moment. Hearken, taut and tense, - In the vast Silence beyond sense, - - The moon! From the hushed heart of her, - Metallic as a grasshopper, - - Patient though earth may writhe and rock, - Imperturbably, tock, tick-tock! - - Till, boastful earth, your forests wilt - In grotesque Death. Till Death shall silt, - - Loud-blooded man, her unchecked sands - From feet and warped expiring hands - - Through fatuous channels of the thinned - Brain. Till all the clangours which have dinned - - Through your arched ears are only this, - Tick-tock down blank eternities, - - Where still the sallow death's-head ticks - As stars burn down like candle-wicks. - - - - - UNNAMED FRUIT - - (_For A. E. Coppard_) - - What fruit grows viewless in my garden plot, - So red the sun is shamed, - Tipped with green starshine and with opal flamed! - Days shall not rot - My fruit so sacred that it is not named. - - Not with a carnal lip shalt thou devour - A pulp so tragic-sweet. - For here the juices of disaster meet - When silly power - Gives form to fancy that a man might eat. - - Leave us a single tree of precious fruit; - One dream to be our own; - One shape which shall not stammer into stone; - One sweet song mute - To sing with fleshless lips when flesh is flown - - - - - PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST - - I have been given eyes - Which are neither foolish nor wise, - Seeing through joy or pain - Beauty alone remain. - - I have been given an ear - Which catches nothing clear, - But only along the day - A Song stealing away. - - My feet and hands never could - Do anything evil or good: - Instead of these things, - A swift mouth that sings. - - - - - SHEPHERD SINGING RAGTIME - - (_For E. V. Branford_) - - The shepherd sings: - "_Way down in Dixie, - Way down in Dixie, - Where the hens are dog-gone glad to lay..._" - - With shaded eyes he stands to look - Across the hills where the clouds swoon, - He singing, leans upon his crook, - He sings, he sings no more. - The wind is muffled in the tangled hair - Of sheep that drift along the noon. - The mild sheep stare - With amber eyes about the pearl-flecked June. - Two skylarks soar - With singing flame - Into the sun whence first they came. - All else is only grasshoppers - Or a brown wing the shepherd stirs, - Who, like a slow tree moving, goes - Where the pale tide of sheep-drift flows. - - See! the sun smites - With molten lights - The turned wing of a gull that glows - Aslant the violet, the profound - Dome of the mid-June heights. - Alas! again the grasshoppers, - The birds, the slumber-winging bees, - Alas! again for those and these - Demure things drowned; - Drowned in vain raucous words men made - Where no lark rose with swift and sweet - Ascent and where no dim sheep strayed - About the stone immensities, - Where no sheep strayed and where no bees - Probed any flowers nor swung a blade - Of grass with pollened feet. - - He sings - "_In Dixie, - Way down in Dixie, - Where the hens are dog-gone glad to lay - Scrambled eggs in the new-mown hay..._" - - The herring-gulls with peevish cries - Rebuke the man who sings vain words; - His sheep-dog growls a low complaint, - Then turns to chasing butterflies. - But when the indifferent singing-birds - From midmost down to dimmest shore - Innumerably confirm their songs, - And grasshoppers make summer rhyme - And solemn bees in the wild thyme - Clash cymbals and beat gongs, - The shepherd's words once more are faint, - Once more the alien song is thinned - Upon the long course of the wind, - He sings, he sings no more. - - Ah now the dear monotonies - Of bells that jangle on the sheep - To the low limit of the hills! - Till the blue cup of music spills - Into the boughs of lowland trees; - Till thence the lowland singings creep - Into the dreamful shepherd's head, - Creep drowsily through his blood; - The young thrush fluting all he knows, - The ring dove moaning his false woes, - Almost the rabbit's tiny tread, - The last unfolding bud. - - But now, - Now a cool word spreads out along the sea. - Now the day's violet is cloud-tipped with gold. - Now dusk most silently - Fills the hushed day with other wings than birds'. - Now where on foam-crest waves the seagulls rock, - To their cliff-haven go the seagulls thence. - So too the shepherd gathers in his flock, - Because birds journey to their dens, - Tired sheep to their still fold. - - A dark first bat swoops low and dips - About the shepherd who now sings - A song of timeless evenings; - For dusk is round him with wide wings, - Dusk murmurs on his moving lips. - - _There is not mortal man who knows - From whence the shepherd's song arose: - It came a thousand years ago._ - - _Once the world's shepherds woke to lead - The folded sheep that they might feed - On green downs where winds blow._ - - _One shepherd sang a golden word. - A thousand miles away one heard. - One sang it swift, one sang it slow._ - - _Two skylarks heard, two skylarks told - All shepherds this same song of gold - On all downs where winds blow._ - - _This is the song that shepherds must - Sing till the green downlands be dust - And tide of sheep-drift no more flow;_ - - _The song two skylarks told again - To all the sheep and shepherd men - On green downs where winds blow._ - - - - - SKYLARK NOON - - Now the tall sky - Is pricked with stars of song as the sky at night - With stars of light. - I am loosened, I fly - Till never a lark is near to the sun as I. - Now through the steeps of air do my swift wings cut. - My wings are seen and not seen - Even as dawn-drenched waters that twinkle and shut, - As I rise to the tops of the noon where no bird has been. - Fleet - My wings beat. - I climb, I climb - High hills of noon that soar from the plains of Time. - But lo! - As I go, - Half flame, half snow, - So far through unwinged places that even the brown - Larks of the dwindling down - Are as dust, and dimmer than dust are men and town-- - Who are these, who are these - New larks whose song is so proud - That my own is cowed? - From what lands, what seas - Have they flown with song so kingly my weak songs fade; - Such song as no bird has made - Though Love called long in Spring and his heart obeyed? - - Such song is theirs as the winds have always sought - But the winds not found; - Such song as the seas at dawn have almost caught - Ere the song was drowned; - Such song as no birds achieve, - Though nightingale may grieve, - And lyric thrush may scold, - And blackbird make so bold - As to declare this silver and his own song gold. - Who are these whose singings here - Compass the noon with splendour, but my heart with fear, - Lest I, unworth this height, - Drop through narrowing deeps of unplumbed night? - - Lo! the dead poets they - Who passed through flesh this way, - These with no lips of clay - Now sing supremest song throughout the duskless day. - In the music now they make - My own few notes forsake - My heart that rocks in silence as a lone bird on a lake. - I vail within my wings - I vail my head in worship before the poet kings; - Until from the far brink - Of this last Song whence I shrink - Ah slowly now and slowly down the tall noon I sink. - - So am I wrapped in quiet, still trancèd by their Word, - Until I reach the airs - Where a mortal skylark fares - But not in his first rapture shall match his song with theirs! - And now my feet are fallen, I am no more a bird, - Now for my little seeing the high gold noon is blurred; - For now where grey roads wind - I walk the low world mutely among my human kind. - - - - - THE SINGER OF HIGH STATE - - On hills too harsh for firs to climb, - Where eagle dare not hatch her brood, - On the sheer peak of Solitude, - With anvils of black granite crude - He beats austerities of rhyme. - - Such godlike stuff his spirit drinks - He made grand odes of tempest there. - The steel-winged eagle, if he dare - To cleave these tracts of frozen air, - Hearing such music, swoops and sinks. - - Stark tumults, which no tense night awes, - Of godly love and titan hate - Down crags of song reverberate. - Held by the Singer of High State, - Battalions of the midnight pause. - - On hills uplift from Space and Time, - On the sheer peak of Solitude, - With stars to give his furnace food, - On anvils of black granite crude - He beats austerities of rhyme. - - - - - BIRD, BIRD, BIRD - - "_Oiseau!_" said the French boy, "_oiseau!_" - --but the word - Was absurd! - "_Vogel!_" said the German boy, but that - Fell flat. - "_Bird!_" said the English boy--the fresh word rolled - Pure gold. - - Bird, bird, bird, bird! - When the quiet branches heard - Bird, bird! - Lovesome and immortal word! - They tossed their plumes of green in delight through the clean - Glory of the morning for the wind blew keen; - For the clouds that had stayed like a will-not-answer maid - Went shining, the white girls, in their marriage things arrayed; - Till the leaves in the dark dells - Were a chorus of swung bells - At the bidding of a word, - Were the din of many bells - The tall towers fling - On the lyric day that tells - Of the beauty and the splendour and the crowning of a King. - - Bird! - Said the boy, - With the voice like a flute. - His feathered brothers heard - In their warm nests mute, - Bird! - Said the boy - With the morning in his cheeks. - Bird, bird, bird, bird! - Joy! - His feathered brothers answered from the silver of their beaks. - - There was lifting of bright heads and a gleam of little eyes, - And a twitter of surprise, - And a flutter of alarm. - Bird! - Said the boy, - Bird, bird, bird, bird! - There fell a shining moment of wide wet calm. - Calm! - - Then suddenly a music from a hundred thousand throats - Crashed like the bows of the ocean-cleaving boats. - A phalanx of swift song made assault against the day, - The winds made way. - Birds rose stark in an ecstasy of fire - To the heart of Song's desire. - - The last skies shook with the throbbing of their flight - Through the blue far height. - There were only birds and song where the globe sped along - To the limits of the far - Blue height. - There was neither sun nor star, - There was neither day nor night, - There was one thing heard - In the limits of the far - Blue height. - Bird, bird, bird, bird! - Bird! - Said the boy, - Said the boy in the morning of the world. - - - - - GREEN BEADS - - Whence have you drawn, O shining beads, - The tints which blind my sight? - "Down in the woods a wild cat bleeds, - He moans along the night. - He gave his green green eyes to deck - The whiteness of your lady's neck. - - "He moans into the dark, he dies. - He has not eyes nor blood. - Your lady's beads may shine, he lies - Stretched cold within the wood. - --But she shall never lose again - The wild cat moaning in her brain." - - - - - THE WIND, WHENCE BLOWING - - From what land where the winds meet - Art thou come, O Wind, O ruthless feet, - O cloak of the most High of Lords, - O shattering thrust of untamed swords? - - From what land where the winds tell - Of ancient Powers sin-swept to Hell, - Of meagre men by Christ's craft - Borne to the Throne where Satan laughed? - - From what land where a Hill stands, - The stars uplift upon his hands; - A Hill stands, and round his knees - There is concourse of all seas? - - "I from the sheer crags of the skies, - To thy hair and hollow eyes!" - - - - - LADY OF BABYLON - - Pink face of deftly prepared flesh, - Soft limbs whose language you employ - In scheduled hours of bartered joy - Against the limbs of a pale boy - Who flounders in your mesh. - - What ashes hide beyond your eye, - What dry winds fanged with thin disdain - Below the convex of your brain - Howl through the bleached bones in the plain - Where your sucked lovers lie? - - God save you, exquisite-obscene, - For her poor sake who one time bore - Your sword-edged baby limbs that tore - Red lumps of flesh from her heart's core, - Christ save you, Magdalene! - - - - - THIS IS THE HAPPY HUSBAND, - THIS IS HE - - Like a sleek slab of pork his pate - Bends moonwise over the heaped plate. - - And from his twin-topped whiskers stoop - Icicular, two beads of soup. - - His belly whimpers in the dun - Processes of digestion, - - While his fat fingers play like nice- - Behaved and clean-licked sewer mice. - - His speckled orbs lurk deep and squat, - Two sick thick toads in a pool's rot. - - Before him on the platter lies - A girl's heart salt with miseries. - - His lip sweats thirst. A withdrawn cork - Plops ... he lifts his knife and fork... - - Down the pink champaign of his chops - Glucose appreciation drops... - - - - - COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR - - Who taps? You are not the wind tapping? - _No! Not the wind!_ - You straining and moaning there, - Are you a cold branch in the black air - Which the storm has skinned? - _No! Not a cold branch! - Not the wind!_ - - Who are you? Who are you? - _But you loved me once,_ - You drank me like wine. - The dead wood simmers in my skull. I am rotten. - And your blood is red still and you have forgotten, - And my blood was yours once and yours mine! - - Are you there still? O fainter, O further.... nothing! - Nothing taps! - Surely you straining and moaning there, - You were only a cold branch in the black air? - ... Or a door perhaps? - - - - - GHOSTS GATHERING - - (_For B. C._) - - You hear no bones click, see no shaken shroud. - Though no tombs grin, you feel ghosts gathering. Crowd - On pitiful crowd of small dead singing men - Tread the sure earth they feebly hymned; again - - With fleshless hand seize unswayed grass. They seize - Insensitive flowers which bend not. Through gross trees - They sift. Nothing withstands them. Nothing knows - Them nor the songs they sang, their busy woes. - - "Hence from these ingrate things! To the towns!" they weep, - (If ghosts have tears). You think a wrinkled heap - Of leaves heaved, or a wing stirred, less than this. - Some chance on the midnight cities. Others miss - - The few faint lights, thin voices. Wretched these - Doomed to beat long the windy vacancies! - - Some mourn through forlorn towns. They prowl and seek - --What seek they? Who knows them? If branches creak - And leaves flap and slow women ply their trade, - Those all are living things, but these are dead, - - All that they were, dead totally. What fool still - Knows their extinguished songs? They had their fill - - Of average joys and sorrows. They learned how - Love wilts, Death does not wilt. What more left now? - - But one ghost yet of all these ghosts may find - Himself not utterly faded. - Through his blind - - Some old man's lamp-rays probe the darkness. Sick - Of his gaunt quest, the ghost halts. The clock's tick - - Troubles the silence. Tiredly the ghost scans - The opened book on the table. A flame fans, - - A weak wan fire floods through his subtle veins. - No, no, not wholly forgotten! Loves and pains - - Not suffered wholly for nothing! - (The old man bends - Over the book, makes notes for pious ends, - - --Some curious futile work twelve men at most - Will read and yawn over.) The dizzy ghost, - - Like some more ignorant moth circles the light... - Not suffered wholly for nothing! ... - "A sweet night!" - - The old man mumbles.... A warmth is in the air, - He smiles, not knowing why. He moves his chair - - Closer against the table. And sitting bowed - Lovingly turns the leaves and chants aloud. - - - - - LYRIC IN GLOOM - - Knights and ladies all are dead, - Heigh-ho! so am I! - Now the sunset falls like lead, - Never a star is in the sky. - Near or far, - Never a star! - Knights and ladies all are dead. - Heigh-ho! so am I! - - We shall never be born again! - Heigh-ho! why should we? - Jesus, first and last of men, - Christ I crucified in me. - Near or far, - Never a star! - We shall never be born again, - Heigh-ho! why should we? - - - - - I SEEK A WILD STAR - - What seek you in this hoarse hard sand - That, shuffles from your futile hand? - Your limbs are wry. With salt despair - All day the scant winds freeze your hair. - What mystery in the barren sand - Seek you to understand? - - _All day the acute winds' finger-tips - Flay my skin and cleave my lips. - But though like flame about my skull - Leap the gibes of the cynic gull, - I shall not go from this place. I - Seek through all curved vacancy - Though the sea taunt me and frost scar, - I seek a star, a star!_ - - Why seek you this, why seek you this - Of all distraught futilities? - The tide slides closer. The tide's teeth - Shall bite your body with keen death! - Of all unspaced things that are - Vain, vain, most hideously far, - Why seek you then a star? - - _I seek a wild star, I that am - Eaten by earth and, all her shame; - To whom fields, towns are a close clot - Of mud whence the worm dieth not; - To whom all running water is - Besnagged with timeless treacheries, - Who in a babe's heart see designed - Mine own distortion and the blind - Lusts of all my kind! - Hence of all vain things that are - Fain, most hideously far, - A star, I seek, a star!_ - - - - - MY LADY OF PEACE - - In the sickening away of the trumpets and the shuddering - of the drums, - She comes, my Lady of Peace, with her grief, her grief, - she comes. - With the blood on her teeth she comes, the lost wild - eyeballs stare; - There is foam in the blood on her lips; ashes are strewn - in her hair. - Like flowers are her dry fingers, pale flowers grey frost - has nipped, - Being empty of hands they held like desolate seas - unshipped. - And she dances, the strayed white woman, she dances a - forlorn tread, - Being sad for the men that are living and glad for the men - that are dead. - - - - - OUR JACK - - Our Jack is dead, our jolly and simple Jack. - To him are fierce stars clay and snow is black. - Black blinding silences are all his hours, - He knows not birds nor laughter nor any flowers. - - And when white winds come calling over the hill, - To him no white winds call, he lies so still. - And now, when all his singing pals come back, - He'll not leave France behind, our little Jack. - - - - - PEACE - - There were three men when grey dawn broke - That walked in a sad wood. - There were three Solemn Men who spoke - No speech I understood. - - The singings of the singing birds - In lorn beaks were subdued. - There was a grief enchained the herds - That beat this bourneless wood. - - One Man was Moses. Lo! he struck - A grim stone with his rod. - There was no living fount that shook - From the far wells of God! - - One Man was Christ. Around His head - The jagged thorns were keen. - But all the blood His body shed - Made not the foul world clean. - - One Man was Everyman. He went - Blank-eyed to the dark mesh. - One Man was Everyman that rent - From his own bones his flesh. - - No boon hath Moses rendered, nor - Shall Christ His bleeding cease. - For swift as Peace hath stifled War, - Huge War hath stifled Peace. - - - - - SILVER-BADGED WAITER - - Poor trussed-up lad, what piteous guise - Cloaks the late splendour of your eyes, - Stiffens the fleetness of your face - Into a mask of sleek disgrace, - And makes a smooth caricature - Of your taut body's swift and sure - Poise, like a proud bird waiting one - Moment ere he taunt the sun; - Your body that stood foolish-wise - Stormed by the treasons of the skies, - Star-like that hung, deliberate - Above the dubieties of Fate, - But with an April gesture chose - Unutterable and certain woes! - - And now you stand with discreet charm - Dropping the napkin round your arm, - Anticipate your tip while you - Hear the commercial travellers chew. - You shuffle with their soups and beers - Who held at heel the howling fears, - You whose young limbs were proud to dare - Challenge the black hosts of despair! - - - - - SUNSET OVER SUBURB - - (_For Neville Whymant_) - - The sun setting down the suburb holds - Impermanent crimsons and elusive golds. - See the false banners! folds on magic folds - Sway down deluded streets! - Refuse and ruin now most featly kissed - By lips flushed amethyst! - The walls are shimmered with a vaporous dusk, - A glamour glooms - The sorrowful pale husk - With rich twilight of witchcraft blooms. - Ah! spurious wizardry that flows and fleets - Where sword-gems flash and melt in a moon-mist! - - The roofs so ashen-dark of old - Flare down the streets like lifted brands, - Flare like the burning arc of sands - Where the recurrent seas have rolled - Long breakers molten from astounding gold - - The chimneys which all day - Scowling have stood - Against the devouring mills, - Boding no thought of good - For whoso came that way-- - Lo now! from evil thought - Soaring through steeps of fire their brows are caught. - - Columnar topaz in this time of shrift, - Their tall heads lift - Among the bases of celestial hills. - - Ah streets, rent roofs, ah chimneys, I am blind! - I dare not find - You lifted so from purgatorial dooms. - I cannot breathe. - Hold me! I sink where the dense colour fumes! - Now opiate hands close round me, draw me down, - Foam-lulled where soundless tides of sunset seethe! - Hold me! I drown! - - My eyes open! ah so wretched eyes! - Have ye no gift to steep - Your seeing in swart sleep? - Cannot your harsh lids close - Tighter than midnight knows, - Make sleep a burial whence the last star dies? - Now ebbing like the blood in a faint pulse, - Relentless, with no pause, - Shorn of the lying sapphires, aureate cheats, - The glamorous tide withdraws. - The false sky dulls - From redmost roses into drooping weeds. - Ah dying beauty now that dying bleeds, - Your banners fail in dust! - A slow rot gnaws - The disillusioned roofs with teeth of rust. - Now chimneys reassume - Their ominous dark doom. - - Sick grey, sick brown and grey once more are penned - Within the network of the haggard streets. - The suburb stretches drably to life's end! - - Like sheep in a mange-ridden flock - Once more the aimless houses sprawl - Along the dishevelled streets, - Where grocers shew their flyblown stock, - Where butchers shew their pulpy meats, - Where down a tin-heaped backyard wall - Thin cats and women call. - As night comes close the suburb flares - To petty sins and cheap carouse - Along its foolish thoroughfares. - The smirking adolescents stand - About the corners in coarse groups. - Somewhere a blind knocks like a hand, - A lodger rings a stuttering bell, - A stray tree mutely droops thin boughs. - A window opening throws a smell - From kitchens where smeared saucepans boil - Their quarts of scurfy soups. - An unlatched door swings wide and wails. - A patch of wilted grass exhales - Scents not of dust nor dustless soil. - - For lo! this twofold sorrow was set down - On the doomed suburb till the last of days, - Which hath been placed in intermediate ways - Between two bournes from which her heart is sealed: - The intimate keep of the far midmost town, - The green quick raptures of far outmost field. - - She knows not the heart throbbing nor the tense - Roads shimmering where the hundred thousand feet - Make thunders where they meet. - Nor tumult storming in loud sense on sense: - Eyes where the profligate hues - Mingle in whirlpools of untamed delight, - Where scarlet or shrill green pursues - Purples and yellows and star-blues, - And find or lose - Their bodies in white day or profound night; - Smells of strange spices from uncharted lands, - Of blood on unwiped hands, - Of woman's hair, of ripe flamboyant flowers, - Of buildings leaping to the displaced skies, - Of all the body's and soul's mad merchandise - Sold through the crowded unremitting hours; - Sounds of innumerable singings since the dawn - Came dancing and, her gown withdrawn, - Her white breasts blinded night's most impotent eyes; - Cracked murmurs of pale harlots in their beds, - Who have paid more than gold for nothing bought; - The mumbling of old women with drooped heads - Who are defeated though they sternly fought; - Music and terror and the shock of wings!-- - Not these she knows--colours and sounds and smells, - The conjoint heavens and the massed hells, - No, not these things! - - Not these she knows,--nor these, nor these: - The snowdrops under the dark yews, - The challenge on the young lips borne - Of brave blackthorn - Against the jagged teeth and the harsh beard - Of winter seared. - Nor primroses washed with sweet dews, - Nor daffodils where bees are stuck - Who probe too deeply for their sweet, - Nor celandine whence they refuse - To move until they suck - Their heads drunk and a stupor to their feet. - Ah the dog-violets on low hills - And woodland sorrel in deep woods - And blackbirds with fine yellow bills - And thrushes of a thousand moods - And nesting-time when these make rhyme - Amid the youngling leaves that climb - On sycamores and chestnut trees! - Not these she knows, not these! - She hath not seen the kingfisher - By willowed waters dart blue fires. - She hath not seen the skylark stir - When a sheep's foot came near his nest, - And rise to lead the morning choirs - From flushed East to pale West. - Nor all the blossoms of all fruit, - Apple and pear and rosy peach, - Nor, palisaded from man's reach - Behind a guard of frowning fir, - Wild cherry tipped with dawn. - Nor heard grass-belfries chink and chime - When poplars sway like a slim faun, - Nor known the tardy oak-tree suit - His body to the crescent time. - - Not these things and not these she knows - Behind her rampart of pale woes, - For she with twofold grief is sealed - From midmost town and outmost field. - Ah sunset! thou who lying came - To flood her streets with traitor flame, - Come thou no more - With gilded lies! - Her heart is numbed, her eyes are sore, - Her heart is troubled with sick shame. - Open no more - One fitful instant the wild door - Which brought one breeze of Paradise. - In this dun midway where she lies - Each day a twofold death she dies. - Thou false and lovely, come no more - With warm wings touched of Paradise! - - - - - SHRIFT AMONG HILLS - - The gaunt stones upright on nude fells - Alone shall be his gods: naught else - Hold his urgent blood and sense - Subdued in proud stern reverence. - Only to these who make their house - Among clean winds he bends his brows. - On their austere lips he shall place - The spent passions of his face. - The cupped midnight like a great bowl - Shall lave him. He shall go forth whole. - - - - - COURAGE THE DREAMERS - - (_For Anthony Bertram_) - - We swing our swords against the bare - Bleak brows of granite. Yea, we dare. - We of clay limbs, armed with frail rhyme, - To taunt the passive globes that stare - From the eye-sockets of stern Time. - - Though our long anguish may not dint - His towering flanks, yet from this flint - Our swords strike such fierce sparks of light, - The moon is blanched, the fool stars stint - Their weak flames at the crest of night. - - Yea though we bleed from crown to heel, - Yea though the points of our split steel - Make futile glories and then die - Against Time's blear immensity, - Yet for black woe there shall be weal! - - Stauncher than Time our dream is built. - Despair not, human dreamers, for - We shall prevail after much war. - Yea, the poor stump of our sword's hilt - At length shall be Time's conqueror! - - - - -A number of these poems are reprinted from _Voices_, _Coterie_, the -_Nation_, the _English Review_, the _Englishwoman_, _To-day_, _Colour_, -the _Apple_, the _New Witness_, the _Sphere_, the _Saturday -Westminster_, and other journals; and from "A Queen's College -Miscellany," "The Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany," and Messrs. Palmer -and Hayward's "Miscellany of Poetry." - - - - -THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LTD. LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. - - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shepherd Singing Ragtime and Other -Poems, by Louis Golding - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHEPHERD SINGING RAGTIME *** - -***** This file should be named 55963-8.txt or 55963-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/9/6/55963/ - -Produced by Al Haines -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Shepherd Singing Ragtime and Other Poems - -Author: Louis Golding - -Release Date: November 14, 2017 [EBook #55963] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHEPHERD SINGING RAGTIME *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - -</pre> - - -<h1> -<br /><br /> - SHEPHERD SINGING<br /> - RAGTIME<br /> -</h1> - -<p class="t2"> - AND OTHER POEMS<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t3"> - BY<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t2"> - LOUIS GOLDING<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - LONDON<br /> - CHRISTOPHERS<br /> - 32 BERNERS STREET, W. 1<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - BY THE SAME AUTHOR<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t3"> - SORROW OF WAR: POEMS<br /> - FORWARD FROM BABYLON<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - FOR JACK<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t4"> - KILLED IN FRANCE, APRIL THE FIFTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED<br /> - AND EIGHTEEN<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="noindent"> - CONTENTS<br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> - <a href="#numbers">Numbers</a><br /> - <a href="#ploughman">Ploughman at the Plough</a><br /> - <a href="#creed">Creed</a><br /> - <a href="#starry">The Starry Lady</a><br /> - <a href="#stooping">When the Great Arm of a Tree Bends Stooping</a><br /> - <a href="#moonclock">The Moon-Clock</a><br /> - <a href="#fruit">Unnamed Fruit</a><br /> - <a href="#artist">Portrait of an Artist</a><br /> - <a href="#shepherd">Shepherd Singing Ragtime</a><br /> - <a href="#skylark">Skylark Noon</a><br /> - <a href="#singer">The Singer of High State</a><br /> - <a href="#bird">Bird, Bird, Bird</a><br /> - <a href="#beads">Green Beads</a><br /> - <a href="#wind">The Wind, Whence Blowing</a><br /> - <a href="#lady">Lady of Babylon</a><br /> - <a href="#husband">This is the Happy Husband, This is He</a><br /> - <a href="#branch">Cold Branch in the Black Air</a><br /> - <a href="#ghosts">Ghosts Gathering</a><br /> - <a href="#lyric">Lyric in Gloom</a><br /> - <a href="#star">I Seek a Wild Star</a><br /> - <a href="#mylady">My Lady of Peace</a><br /> - <a href="#jack">Our Jack</a><br /> - <a href="#peace">Peace</a><br /> - <a href="#waiter">Silver-Badged Waiter</a><br /> - <a href="#sunset">Sunset over Suburb</a><br /> - <a href="#shrift">Shrift among Hills</a><br /> - <a href="#courage">Courage the Dreamers</a><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="numbers"></a></p> - -<h3> - NUMBERS -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Three sheep graze on the low hill<br /> - Beneath the shadow of five trees.<br /> - Three sheep!<br /> - Five old sycamores!<br /> - (The noon is very full of sleep.<br /> - The noon's a shepherd kind and still.<br /> - The noon's a shepherd takes his ease<br /> - Beneath the shadow of five trees,<br /> - Five old sycamores.)<br /> - Three sheep graze on the low hill.<br /> - Down in the grass in twos and fours<br /> - Cows are munching in the field.<br /> - Three sheep graze on the low hill;<br /> - Bless them, Lord, to give me wool.<br /> - Cows are munching in the field;<br /> - Bless them that their teats be full.<br /> - Bless the sheep and cows to yield<br /> - Wool to keep my children warm,<br /> - Milk that they should grow therefrom.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Three sheep graze on the low hill,<br /> - Beneath five sycamores.<br /> - Cows are munching in the field.<br /> - All in twos and fours.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - On an elm-tree far aloof<br /> - There are nine-and-twenty crows,<br /> - Croaking to the blue sky roof<br /> - Fifteen hundred ancient woes.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - In a cracked deserted house,<br /> - Six owls cloaked with age and dream,<br /> - In a cracked deserted house,<br /> - Six owls wait upon a beam,<br /> - Wait for the nocturnal mouse.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - In the stackyard at my farm<br /> - There are fourteen stacks of hay.<br /> - Lord, I pray<br /> - Keep my golden goods from harm,<br /> - Fourteen shining stacks of hay!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Fourteen shining stacks of hay,<br /> - Six owls, nine-and-twenty crows,<br /> - Three sheep grazing on the hill<br /> - Beneath five sycamores,<br /> - Fat cows munching in a field,<br /> - All in twos and fours,<br /> - Fat cows munching in a field,<br /> - Fourteen shining stacks of hay.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - At a table in a room<br /> - Where beyond the window-frames<br /> - Glows the sweet geranium,<br /> - At a table in a room<br /> - My three children play their games<br /> - Till their father-poet come,<br /> - Stop a moment, listen, wait<br /> - Till a father-poet come.<br /> - Lovely ones of lovely names,<br /> - He shall not come late.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Fourteen shining stacks of hay,<br /> - Six owls, nine-and-twenty crows,<br /> - Fifteen hundred ancient woes,<br /> - Three sheep grazing on the hill,<br /> - Beneath five sycamores,<br /> - Fat cows munching in a field<br /> - All in twos and fours,<br /> - Fourteen shining stacks of hay,<br /> - My three lovely children, one<br /> - Mother laughing like the sun,<br /> - Sweetheart laughing like the sun<br /> - When the baby laughters run.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Now the goal I sought is won,<br /> - Sweetheart laughing like the sun,<br /> - Now the goal I sought is won,<br /> - Sweet, my song is done.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="ploughman"></a></p> - -<h3> - PLOUGHMAN AT THE PLOUGH<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - He behind the straight plough stands<br /> - Stalwart, firm shafts in firm hands.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Naught he cares for wars and naught<br /> - For the fierce disease of thought.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Only for the winds, the sheer<br /> - Naked impulse of the year,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Only for the soil which stares<br /> - Clean into God's face he cares.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - In the stark might of his deed<br /> - There is more than art or creed;<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - In his wrist more strength is hid<br /> - Than the monstrous Pyramid;<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Stauncher than stern Everest<br /> - Be the muscles of his breast;<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Not the Atlantic sweeps a flood<br /> - Potent as the ploughman's blood.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - He, his horse, his ploughshare, these<br /> - Are the only verities.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Dawn to dusk with God he stands,<br /> - The Earth poised on his broad hands.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="creed"></a></p> - -<h3> - CREED<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - I shall insistently and proudly read<br /> - Into the mud of things a mudless creed,<br /> - Out of mud fashioning a palace so<br /> - Clamant with beauty and superb with snow,<br /> - That in this glory shall men's eyes be blurred,<br /> - Stars be made slaves to this most potent Word.<br /> - I in thick mud shall hear swift stars proclaim<br /> - The intolerable splendour of the Name.<br /> - I in a beetle's nerves shall search and find<br /> - The processes of the chaos-cleaving mind,<br /> - On my clock's second-fingers I shall see<br /> - The tidal journeyings of Eternity.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="starry"></a></p> - -<h3> -THE STARRY LADY -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Now with anger,<br /> - Pomp and royal clangour,<br /> - Now where his Lady is<br /> - Starry with her crown;<br /> - Now the hills waking from the day's languor,<br /> - Now with many instruments in puissant harmonies,<br /> - The sun goes down.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Now rivers splendid<br /> - Now song attended<br /> - Throw ranks of music forward to the sea.<br /> - Now hills like vocal moons<br /> - Blow their prolonged bassoons<br /> - Forth where the Monarch swoons,<br /> - After long labour ended,<br /> - Swoons for his Lady—ah starry she!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - From dim clouds wheeling<br /> - Song down comes stealing<br /> - Round flowers whose petals shaking<br /> - Silver of song are making;<br /> - Round the grand bronze of trees<br /> - Whose trumpets pealing<br /> - Peal through the sunset till<br /> - Flower, tree and cloud and hill<br /> - Fuse in the splendour of song that girdles the seas.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The Sun now is set—and now<br /> - Lips on her calm cool brow!<br /> - Now there is heaping<br /> - Of star-dust steeping<br /> - With deep and drowsy scents<br /> - Their bodies sleeping.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Quiet now, quiet,<br /> - Of golden instruments!<br /> - Now still, most shadowy still<br /> - Are cloud and hill;<br /> - Still, in this solemn hour<br /> - Lie cloud and flower;<br /> - Still, most shadowy still<br /> - Lie cloud and tree.<br /> - Now under tranquil skies,<br /> - Far, far the Monarch lies<br /> - Lone with his starry Lady—ah starry she!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="stooping"></a></p> - -<h3> - WHEN THE GREAT ARM OF<br /> - A TREE BENDS STOOPING<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - When the great arm of a tree bends stooping<br /> - Across the dark road ...<br /> - Beware, beware!<br /> - Beware lest fingers searching, scooping<br /> - Snatch up your body by your hair,<br /> - Beware!<br /> - Think this no leafing clod,<br /> - Insensible clay!<br /> - Know you that through long ages in tense calm<br /> - This tree hath held its arm,<br /> - The instinct fingers nerved by most high God:<br /> - Until you knowing nought<br /> - Because of thick false thought,<br /> - You came, frail fool, treading a secure way.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - When the great arm of a tree bends stooping<br /> - Across the dark road ...<br /> - Beware!<br /> - Beware lest fingers meet within your hair,<br /> - A stern arm clasp you round,<br /> - Bear you from the ground;<br /> - And you shall be held tight<br /> - Against a bloodless breast<br /> - Till human blood be pressed<br /> - From finger-nails and eyes,<br /> - And all the little cries<br /> - Your lips gave forth of old<br /> - Shall now no more arise<br /> - Where you hang cold,<br /> - Where you hang dry and stark<br /> - Against the granite dark,<br /> - Frozenly upright;<br /> - And deeper, deeper you<br /> - Shall thick leaves hide from view,<br /> - Your dead limbs shall be sunk<br /> - Down further through the trunk,<br /> - And all your veins shall wrap<br /> - Channels of flowing sap,<br /> - Your brain and lungs and blood<br /> - Shall be stiff wood,<br /> - Till you at last shall be<br /> - The cold heart of a tree.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Beware!<br /> - When the great arm of a tree bends stooping<br /> - Across the dark road....<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="moonclock"></a></p> - -<h3> - THE MOON-CLOCK<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - (<i>For Alan Porter</i>)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Tick-tock! the moon, that pale round clock<br /> - Her big face peering, goes tick-tock!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Metallic as a grasshopper<br /> - The faint far tickings start and stir.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - All night tinily you can hear<br /> - Tick-tock tinkling down the sheer<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Steep falls of space. Minute, aloof,<br /> - Here is no praise, here no reproof.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Remote in voids star-purged of sense,<br /> - Tick-tock in stark indifference!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - From ice-black lands of lack and rock,<br /> - The two swords shake and clank tick-tock.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - In the dark din of the day's vault<br /> - Demand thy headlong soul shall halt<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - One moment. Hearken, taut and tense,<br /> - In the vast Silence beyond sense,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The moon! From the hushed heart of her,<br /> - Metallic as a grasshopper,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Patient though earth may writhe and rock,<br /> - Imperturbably, tock, tick-tock!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Till, boastful earth, your forests wilt<br /> - In grotesque Death. Till Death shall silt,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Loud-blooded man, her unchecked sands<br /> - From feet and warped expiring hands<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Through fatuous channels of the thinned<br /> - Brain. Till all the clangours which have dinned<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Through your arched ears are only this,<br /> - Tick-tock down blank eternities,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Where still the sallow death's-head ticks<br /> - As stars burn down like candle-wicks.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="fruit"></a></p> - -<h3> - UNNAMED FRUIT -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - (<i>For A. E. Coppard</i>)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - What fruit grows viewless in my garden plot,<br /> - So red the sun is shamed,<br /> - Tipped with green starshine and with opal flamed!<br /> - Days shall not rot<br /> - My fruit so sacred that it is not named.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Not with a carnal lip shalt thou devour<br /> - A pulp so tragic-sweet.<br /> - For here the juices of disaster meet<br /> - When silly power<br /> - Gives form to fancy that a man might eat.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Leave us a single tree of precious fruit;<br /> - One dream to be our own;<br /> - One shape which shall not stammer into stone;<br /> - One sweet song mute<br /> - To sing with fleshless lips when flesh is flown<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="artist"></a></p> - -<h3> - PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - I have been given eyes<br /> - Which are neither foolish nor wise,<br /> - Seeing through joy or pain<br /> - Beauty alone remain.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - I have been given an ear<br /> - Which catches nothing clear,<br /> - But only along the day<br /> - A Song stealing away.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - My feet and hands never could<br /> - Do anything evil or good:<br /> - Instead of these things,<br /> - A swift mouth that sings.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="shepherd"></a></p> - -<h3> - SHEPHERD SINGING RAGTIME<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - (<i>For E. V. Branford</i>)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The shepherd sings:<br /> - "<i>Way down in Dixie,<br /> - Way down in Dixie,<br /> - Where the hens are dog-gone glad to lay...</i>"<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - With shaded eyes he stands to look<br /> - Across the hills where the clouds swoon,<br /> - He singing, leans upon his crook,<br /> - He sings, he sings no more.<br /> - The wind is muffled in the tangled hair<br /> - Of sheep that drift along the noon.<br /> - The mild sheep stare<br /> - With amber eyes about the pearl-flecked June.<br /> - Two skylarks soar<br /> - With singing flame<br /> - Into the sun whence first they came.<br /> - All else is only grasshoppers<br /> - Or a brown wing the shepherd stirs,<br /> - Who, like a slow tree moving, goes<br /> - Where the pale tide of sheep-drift flows.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - See! the sun smites<br /> - With molten lights<br /> - The turned wing of a gull that glows<br /> - Aslant the violet, the profound<br /> - Dome of the mid-June heights.<br /> - Alas! again the grasshoppers,<br /> - The birds, the slumber-winging bees,<br /> - Alas! again for those and these<br /> - Demure things drowned;<br /> - Drowned in vain raucous words men made<br /> - Where no lark rose with swift and sweet<br /> - Ascent and where no dim sheep strayed<br /> - About the stone immensities,<br /> - Where no sheep strayed and where no bees<br /> - Probed any flowers nor swung a blade<br /> - Of grass with pollened feet.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - He sings<br /> - "<i>In Dixie,<br /> - Way down in Dixie,<br /> - Where the hens are dog-gone glad to lay<br /> - Scrambled eggs in the new-mown hay...</i>"<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The herring-gulls with peevish cries<br /> - Rebuke the man who sings vain words;<br /> - His sheep-dog growls a low complaint,<br /> - Then turns to chasing butterflies.<br /> - But when the indifferent singing-birds<br /> - From midmost down to dimmest shore<br /> - Innumerably confirm their songs,<br /> - And grasshoppers make summer rhyme<br /> - And solemn bees in the wild thyme<br /> - Clash cymbals and beat gongs,<br /> - The shepherd's words once more are faint,<br /> - Once more the alien song is thinned<br /> - Upon the long course of the wind,<br /> - He sings, he sings no more.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Ah now the dear monotonies<br /> - Of bells that jangle on the sheep<br /> - To the low limit of the hills!<br /> - Till the blue cup of music spills<br /> - Into the boughs of lowland trees;<br /> - Till thence the lowland singings creep<br /> - Into the dreamful shepherd's head,<br /> - Creep drowsily through his blood;<br /> - The young thrush fluting all he knows,<br /> - The ring dove moaning his false woes,<br /> - Almost the rabbit's tiny tread,<br /> - The last unfolding bud.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - But now,<br /> - Now a cool word spreads out along the sea.<br /> - Now the day's violet is cloud-tipped with gold.<br /> - Now dusk most silently<br /> - Fills the hushed day with other wings than birds'.<br /> - Now where on foam-crest waves the seagulls rock,<br /> - To their cliff-haven go the seagulls thence.<br /> - So too the shepherd gathers in his flock,<br /> - Because birds journey to their dens,<br /> - Tired sheep to their still fold.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - A dark first bat swoops low and dips<br /> - About the shepherd who now sings<br /> - A song of timeless evenings;<br /> - For dusk is round him with wide wings,<br /> - Dusk murmurs on his moving lips.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>There is not mortal man who knows<br /> - From whence the shepherd's song arose:<br /> - It came a thousand years ago.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>Once the world's shepherds woke to lead<br /> - The folded sheep that they might feed<br /> - On green downs where winds blow.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>One shepherd sang a golden word.<br /> - A thousand miles away one heard.<br /> - One sang it swift, one sang it slow.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>Two skylarks heard, two skylarks told<br /> - All shepherds this same song of gold<br /> - On all downs where winds blow.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>This is the song that shepherds must<br /> - Sing till the green downlands be dust<br /> - And tide of sheep-drift no more flow;</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>The song two skylarks told again<br /> - To all the sheep and shepherd men<br /> - On green downs where winds blow.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="skylark"></a></p> - -<h3> - SKYLARK NOON<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Now the tall sky<br /> - Is pricked with stars of song as the sky at night<br /> - With stars of light.<br /> - I am loosened, I fly<br /> - Till never a lark is near to the sun as I.<br /> - Now through the steeps of air do my swift wings cut.<br /> - My wings are seen and not seen<br /> - Even as dawn-drenched waters that twinkle and shut,<br /> - As I rise to the tops of the noon where no bird has been.<br /> - Fleet<br /> - My wings beat.<br /> - I climb, I climb<br /> - High hills of noon that soar from the plains of Time.<br /> - But lo!<br /> - As I go,<br /> - Half flame, half snow,<br /> - So far through unwinged places that even the brown<br /> - Larks of the dwindling down<br /> - Are as dust, and dimmer than dust are men and town—<br /> - Who are these, who are these<br /> - New larks whose song is so proud<br /> - That my own is cowed?<br /> - From what lands, what seas<br /> - Have they flown with song so kingly my weak songs fade;<br /> - Such song as no bird has made<br /> - Though Love called long in Spring and his heart obeyed?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Such song is theirs as the winds have always sought<br /> - But the winds not found;<br /> - Such song as the seas at dawn have almost caught<br /> - Ere the song was drowned;<br /> - Such song as no birds achieve,<br /> - Though nightingale may grieve,<br /> - And lyric thrush may scold,<br /> - And blackbird make so bold<br /> - As to declare this silver and his own song gold.<br /> - Who are these whose singings here<br /> - Compass the noon with splendour, but my heart with fear,<br /> - Lest I, unworth this height,<br /> - Drop through narrowing deeps of unplumbed night?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Lo! the dead poets they<br /> - Who passed through flesh this way,<br /> - These with no lips of clay<br /> - Now sing supremest song throughout the duskless day.<br /> - In the music now they make<br /> - My own few notes forsake<br /> - My heart that rocks in silence as a lone bird on a lake.<br /> - I vail within my wings<br /> - I vail my head in worship before the poet kings;<br /> - Until from the far brink<br /> - Of this last Song whence I shrink<br /> - Ah slowly now and slowly down the tall noon I sink.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - So am I wrapped in quiet, still trancèd by their Word,<br /> - Until I reach the airs<br /> - Where a mortal skylark fares<br /> - But not in his first rapture shall match his song with theirs!<br /> - And now my feet are fallen, I am no more a bird,<br /> - Now for my little seeing the high gold noon is blurred;<br /> - For now where grey roads wind<br /> - I walk the low world mutely among my human kind.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="singer"></a></p> - -<h3> - THE SINGER OF HIGH STATE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - On hills too harsh for firs to climb,<br /> - Where eagle dare not hatch her brood,<br /> - On the sheer peak of Solitude,<br /> - With anvils of black granite crude<br /> - He beats austerities of rhyme.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Such godlike stuff his spirit drinks<br /> - He made grand odes of tempest there.<br /> - The steel-winged eagle, if he dare<br /> - To cleave these tracts of frozen air,<br /> - Hearing such music, swoops and sinks.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Stark tumults, which no tense night awes,<br /> - Of godly love and titan hate<br /> - Down crags of song reverberate.<br /> - Held by the Singer of High State,<br /> - Battalions of the midnight pause.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - On hills uplift from Space and Time,<br /> - On the sheer peak of Solitude,<br /> - With stars to give his furnace food,<br /> - On anvils of black granite crude<br /> - He beats austerities of rhyme.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="bird"></a></p> - -<h3> - BIRD, BIRD, BIRD -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - "<i>Oiseau!</i>" said the French boy, "<i>oiseau!</i>"<br /> - —but the word<br /> - Was absurd!<br /> - "<i>Vogel!</i>" said the German boy, but that<br /> - Fell flat.<br /> - "<i>Bird!</i>" said the English boy—the fresh word rolled<br /> - Pure gold.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Bird, bird, bird, bird!<br /> - When the quiet branches heard<br /> - Bird, bird!<br /> - Lovesome and immortal word!<br /> - They tossed their plumes of green in delight through the clean<br /> - Glory of the morning for the wind blew keen;<br /> - For the clouds that had stayed like a will-not-answer maid<br /> - Went shining, the white girls, in their marriage things arrayed;<br /> - Till the leaves in the dark dells<br /> - Were a chorus of swung bells<br /> - At the bidding of a word,<br /> - Were the din of many bells<br /> - The tall towers fling<br /> - On the lyric day that tells<br /> - Of the beauty and the splendour and the crowning of a King.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Bird!<br /> - Said the boy,<br /> - With the voice like a flute.<br /> - His feathered brothers heard<br /> - In their warm nests mute,<br /> - Bird!<br /> - Said the boy<br /> - With the morning in his cheeks.<br /> - Bird, bird, bird, bird!<br /> - Joy!<br /> - His feathered brothers answered from the silver of their beaks.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - There was lifting of bright heads and a gleam of little eyes,<br /> - And a twitter of surprise,<br /> - And a flutter of alarm.<br /> - Bird!<br /> - Said the boy,<br /> - Bird, bird, bird, bird!<br /> - There fell a shining moment of wide wet calm.<br /> - Calm!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Then suddenly a music from a hundred thousand throats<br /> - Crashed like the bows of the ocean-cleaving boats.<br /> - A phalanx of swift song made assault against the day,<br /> - The winds made way.<br /> - Birds rose stark in an ecstasy of fire<br /> - To the heart of Song's desire.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The last skies shook with the throbbing of their flight<br /> - Through the blue far height.<br /> - There were only birds and song where the globe sped along<br /> - To the limits of the far<br /> - Blue height.<br /> - There was neither sun nor star,<br /> - There was neither day nor night,<br /> - There was one thing heard<br /> - In the limits of the far<br /> - Blue height.<br /> - Bird, bird, bird, bird!<br /> - Bird!<br /> - Said the boy,<br /> - Said the boy in the morning of the world.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="beads"></a></p> - -<h3> - GREEN BEADS<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Whence have you drawn, O shining beads,<br /> - The tints which blind my sight?<br /> - "Down in the woods a wild cat bleeds,<br /> - He moans along the night.<br /> - He gave his green green eyes to deck<br /> - The whiteness of your lady's neck.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "He moans into the dark, he dies.<br /> - He has not eyes nor blood.<br /> - Your lady's beads may shine, he lies<br /> - Stretched cold within the wood.<br /> - —But she shall never lose again<br /> - The wild cat moaning in her brain."<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="wind"></a></p> - -<h3> - THE WIND, WHENCE BLOWING<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - From what land where the winds meet<br /> - Art thou come, O Wind, O ruthless feet,<br /> - O cloak of the most High of Lords,<br /> - O shattering thrust of untamed swords?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - From what land where the winds tell<br /> - Of ancient Powers sin-swept to Hell,<br /> - Of meagre men by Christ's craft<br /> - Borne to the Throne where Satan laughed?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - From what land where a Hill stands,<br /> - The stars uplift upon his hands;<br /> - A Hill stands, and round his knees<br /> - There is concourse of all seas?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "I from the sheer crags of the skies,<br /> - To thy hair and hollow eyes!"<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="lady"></a></p> - -<h3> - LADY OF BABYLON<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Pink face of deftly prepared flesh,<br /> - Soft limbs whose language you employ<br /> - In scheduled hours of bartered joy<br /> - Against the limbs of a pale boy<br /> - Who flounders in your mesh.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - What ashes hide beyond your eye,<br /> - What dry winds fanged with thin disdain<br /> - Below the convex of your brain<br /> - Howl through the bleached bones in the plain<br /> - Where your sucked lovers lie?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - God save you, exquisite-obscene,<br /> - For her poor sake who one time bore<br /> - Your sword-edged baby limbs that tore<br /> - Red lumps of flesh from her heart's core,<br /> - Christ save you, Magdalene!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="husband"></a></p> - -<h3> - THIS IS THE HAPPY HUSBAND,<br /> - THIS IS HE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Like a sleek slab of pork his pate<br /> - Bends moonwise over the heaped plate.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And from his twin-topped whiskers stoop<br /> - Icicular, two beads of soup.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - His belly whimpers in the dun<br /> - Processes of digestion,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - While his fat fingers play like nice-<br /> - Behaved and clean-licked sewer mice.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - His speckled orbs lurk deep and squat,<br /> - Two sick thick toads in a pool's rot.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Before him on the platter lies<br /> - A girl's heart salt with miseries.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - His lip sweats thirst. A withdrawn cork<br /> - Plops ... he lifts his knife and fork...<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Down the pink champaign of his chops<br /> - Glucose appreciation drops...<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="branch"></a></p> - -<h3> - COLD BRANCH IN THE BLACK AIR<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Who taps? You are not the wind tapping?<br /> - <i>No! Not the wind!</i><br /> - You straining and moaning there,<br /> - Are you a cold branch in the black air<br /> - Which the storm has skinned?<br /> - <i>No! Not a cold branch!<br /> - Not the wind!</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Who are you? Who are you?<br /> - <i>But you loved me once,</i><br /> - You drank me like wine.<br /> - The dead wood simmers in my skull. I am rotten.<br /> - And your blood is red still and you have forgotten,<br /> - And my blood was yours once and yours mine!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Are you there still? O fainter, O further.... nothing!<br /> - Nothing taps!<br /> - Surely you straining and moaning there,<br /> - You were only a cold branch in the black air?<br /> - ... Or a door perhaps?<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="ghosts"></a></p> - -<h3> - GHOSTS GATHERING<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - (<i>For B. C.</i>)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - You hear no bones click, see no shaken shroud.<br /> - Though no tombs grin, you feel ghosts gathering. Crowd<br /> - On pitiful crowd of small dead singing men<br /> - Tread the sure earth they feebly hymned; again<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - With fleshless hand seize unswayed grass. They seize<br /> - Insensitive flowers which bend not. Through gross trees<br /> - They sift. Nothing withstands them. Nothing knows<br /> - Them nor the songs they sang, their busy woes.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "Hence from these ingrate things! To the towns!" they weep,<br /> - (If ghosts have tears). You think a wrinkled heap<br /> - Of leaves heaved, or a wing stirred, less than this.<br /> - Some chance on the midnight cities. Others miss<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The few faint lights, thin voices. Wretched these<br /> - Doomed to beat long the windy vacancies!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Some mourn through forlorn towns. They prowl and seek<br /> - —What seek they? Who knows them? If branches creak<br /> - And leaves flap and slow women ply their trade,<br /> - Those all are living things, but these are dead,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - All that they were, dead totally. What fool still<br /> - Knows their extinguished songs? They had their fill<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Of average joys and sorrows. They learned how<br /> - Love wilts, Death does not wilt. What more left now?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - But one ghost yet of all these ghosts may find<br /> - Himself not utterly faded.<br /> - Through his blind<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Some old man's lamp-rays probe the darkness. Sick<br /> - Of his gaunt quest, the ghost halts. The clock's tick<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Troubles the silence. Tiredly the ghost scans<br /> - The opened book on the table. A flame fans,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - A weak wan fire floods through his subtle veins.<br /> - No, no, not wholly forgotten! Loves and pains<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Not suffered wholly for nothing!<br /> - (The old man bends<br /> - Over the book, makes notes for pious ends,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - —Some curious futile work twelve men at most<br /> - Will read and yawn over.) The dizzy ghost,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Like some more ignorant moth circles the light...<br /> - Not suffered wholly for nothing! ...<br /> - "A sweet night!"<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The old man mumbles.... A warmth is in the air,<br /> - He smiles, not knowing why. He moves his chair<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Closer against the table. And sitting bowed<br /> - Lovingly turns the leaves and chants aloud.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="lyric"></a></p> - -<h3> - LYRIC IN GLOOM<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Knights and ladies all are dead,<br /> - Heigh-ho! so am I!<br /> - Now the sunset falls like lead,<br /> - Never a star is in the sky.<br /> - Near or far,<br /> - Never a star!<br /> - Knights and ladies all are dead.<br /> - Heigh-ho! so am I!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - We shall never be born again!<br /> - Heigh-ho! why should we?<br /> - Jesus, first and last of men,<br /> - Christ I crucified in me.<br /> - Near or far,<br /> - Never a star!<br /> - We shall never be born again,<br /> - Heigh-ho! why should we?<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="star"></a></p> - -<h3> - I SEEK A WILD STAR -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - What seek you in this hoarse hard sand<br /> - That, shuffles from your futile hand?<br /> - Your limbs are wry. With salt despair<br /> - All day the scant winds freeze your hair.<br /> - What mystery in the barren sand<br /> - Seek you to understand?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>All day the acute winds' finger-tips<br /> - Flay my skin and cleave my lips.<br /> - But though like flame about my skull<br /> - Leap the gibes of the cynic gull,<br /> - I shall not go from this place. I<br /> - Seek through all curved vacancy<br /> - Though the sea taunt me and frost scar,<br /> - I seek a star, a star!</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Why seek you this, why seek you this<br /> - Of all distraught futilities?<br /> - The tide slides closer. The tide's teeth<br /> - Shall bite your body with keen death!<br /> - Of all unspaced things that are<br /> - Vain, vain, most hideously far,<br /> - Why seek you then a star?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - <i>I seek a wild star, I that am<br /> - Eaten by earth and, all her shame;<br /> - To whom fields, towns are a close clot<br /> - Of mud whence the worm dieth not;<br /> - To whom all running water is<br /> - Besnagged with timeless treacheries,<br /> - Who in a babe's heart see designed<br /> - Mine own distortion and the blind<br /> - Lusts of all my kind!<br /> - Hence of all vain things that are<br /> - Fain, most hideously far,<br /> - A star, I seek, a star!</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="mylady"></a></p> - -<h3> - MY LADY OF PEACE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - In the sickening away of the trumpets and the shuddering<br /> - of the drums,<br /> - She comes, my Lady of Peace, with her grief, her grief,<br /> - she comes.<br /> - With the blood on her teeth she comes, the lost wild<br /> - eyeballs stare;<br /> - There is foam in the blood on her lips; ashes are strewn<br /> - in her hair.<br /> - Like flowers are her dry fingers, pale flowers grey frost<br /> - has nipped,<br /> - Being empty of hands they held like desolate seas<br /> - unshipped.<br /> - And she dances, the strayed white woman, she dances a<br /> - forlorn tread,<br /> - Being sad for the men that are living and glad for the men<br /> - that are dead.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="jack"></a></p> - -<h3> - OUR JACK<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Our Jack is dead, our jolly and simple Jack.<br /> - To him are fierce stars clay and snow is black.<br /> - Black blinding silences are all his hours,<br /> - He knows not birds nor laughter nor any flowers.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And when white winds come calling over the hill,<br /> - To him no white winds call, he lies so still.<br /> - And now, when all his singing pals come back,<br /> - He'll not leave France behind, our little Jack.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="peace"></a></p> - -<h3> - PEACE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - There were three men when grey dawn broke<br /> - That walked in a sad wood.<br /> - There were three Solemn Men who spoke<br /> - No speech I understood.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The singings of the singing birds<br /> - In lorn beaks were subdued.<br /> - There was a grief enchained the herds<br /> - That beat this bourneless wood.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - One Man was Moses. Lo! he struck<br /> - A grim stone with his rod.<br /> - There was no living fount that shook<br /> - From the far wells of God!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - One Man was Christ. Around His head<br /> - The jagged thorns were keen.<br /> - But all the blood His body shed<br /> - Made not the foul world clean.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - One Man was Everyman. He went<br /> - Blank-eyed to the dark mesh.<br /> - One Man was Everyman that rent<br /> - From his own bones his flesh.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - No boon hath Moses rendered, nor<br /> - Shall Christ His bleeding cease.<br /> - For swift as Peace hath stifled War,<br /> - Huge War hath stifled Peace.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="waiter"></a></p> - -<h3> - SILVER-BADGED WAITER<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Poor trussed-up lad, what piteous guise<br /> - Cloaks the late splendour of your eyes,<br /> - Stiffens the fleetness of your face<br /> - Into a mask of sleek disgrace,<br /> - And makes a smooth caricature<br /> - Of your taut body's swift and sure<br /> - Poise, like a proud bird waiting one<br /> - Moment ere he taunt the sun;<br /> - Your body that stood foolish-wise<br /> - Stormed by the treasons of the skies,<br /> - Star-like that hung, deliberate<br /> - Above the dubieties of Fate,<br /> - But with an April gesture chose<br /> - Unutterable and certain woes!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And now you stand with discreet charm<br /> - Dropping the napkin round your arm,<br /> - Anticipate your tip while you<br /> - Hear the commercial travellers chew.<br /> - You shuffle with their soups and beers<br /> - Who held at heel the howling fears,<br /> - You whose young limbs were proud to dare<br /> - Challenge the black hosts of despair!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="sunset"></a></p> - -<h3> - SUNSET OVER SUBURB<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - (<i>For Neville Whymant</i>)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The sun setting down the suburb holds<br /> - Impermanent crimsons and elusive golds.<br /> - See the false banners! folds on magic folds<br /> - Sway down deluded streets!<br /> - Refuse and ruin now most featly kissed<br /> - By lips flushed amethyst!<br /> - The walls are shimmered with a vaporous dusk,<br /> - A glamour glooms<br /> - The sorrowful pale husk<br /> - With rich twilight of witchcraft blooms.<br /> - Ah! spurious wizardry that flows and fleets<br /> - Where sword-gems flash and melt in a moon-mist!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The roofs so ashen-dark of old<br /> - Flare down the streets like lifted brands,<br /> - Flare like the burning arc of sands<br /> - Where the recurrent seas have rolled<br /> - Long breakers molten from astounding gold<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The chimneys which all day<br /> - Scowling have stood<br /> - Against the devouring mills,<br /> - Boding no thought of good<br /> - For whoso came that way—<br /> - Lo now! from evil thought<br /> - Soaring through steeps of fire their brows are caught.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Columnar topaz in this time of shrift,<br /> - Their tall heads lift<br /> - Among the bases of celestial hills.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Ah streets, rent roofs, ah chimneys, I am blind!<br /> - I dare not find<br /> - You lifted so from purgatorial dooms.<br /> - I cannot breathe.<br /> - Hold me! I sink where the dense colour fumes!<br /> - Now opiate hands close round me, draw me down,<br /> - Foam-lulled where soundless tides of sunset seethe!<br /> - Hold me! I drown!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - My eyes open! ah so wretched eyes!<br /> - Have ye no gift to steep<br /> - Your seeing in swart sleep?<br /> - Cannot your harsh lids close<br /> - Tighter than midnight knows,<br /> - Make sleep a burial whence the last star dies?<br /> - Now ebbing like the blood in a faint pulse,<br /> - Relentless, with no pause,<br /> - Shorn of the lying sapphires, aureate cheats,<br /> - The glamorous tide withdraws.<br /> - The false sky dulls<br /> - From redmost roses into drooping weeds.<br /> - Ah dying beauty now that dying bleeds,<br /> - Your banners fail in dust!<br /> - A slow rot gnaws<br /> - The disillusioned roofs with teeth of rust.<br /> - Now chimneys reassume<br /> - Their ominous dark doom.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Sick grey, sick brown and grey once more are penned<br /> - Within the network of the haggard streets.<br /> - The suburb stretches drably to life's end!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Like sheep in a mange-ridden flock<br /> - Once more the aimless houses sprawl<br /> - Along the dishevelled streets,<br /> - Where grocers shew their flyblown stock,<br /> - Where butchers shew their pulpy meats,<br /> - Where down a tin-heaped backyard wall<br /> - Thin cats and women call.<br /> - As night comes close the suburb flares<br /> - To petty sins and cheap carouse<br /> - Along its foolish thoroughfares.<br /> - The smirking adolescents stand<br /> - About the corners in coarse groups.<br /> - Somewhere a blind knocks like a hand,<br /> - A lodger rings a stuttering bell,<br /> - A stray tree mutely droops thin boughs.<br /> - A window opening throws a smell<br /> - From kitchens where smeared saucepans boil<br /> - Their quarts of scurfy soups.<br /> - An unlatched door swings wide and wails.<br /> - A patch of wilted grass exhales<br /> - Scents not of dust nor dustless soil.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - For lo! this twofold sorrow was set down<br /> - On the doomed suburb till the last of days,<br /> - Which hath been placed in intermediate ways<br /> - Between two bournes from which her heart is sealed:<br /> - The intimate keep of the far midmost town,<br /> - The green quick raptures of far outmost field.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - She knows not the heart throbbing nor the tense<br /> - Roads shimmering where the hundred thousand feet<br /> - Make thunders where they meet.<br /> - Nor tumult storming in loud sense on sense:<br /> - Eyes where the profligate hues<br /> - Mingle in whirlpools of untamed delight,<br /> - Where scarlet or shrill green pursues<br /> - Purples and yellows and star-blues,<br /> - And find or lose<br /> - Their bodies in white day or profound night;<br /> - Smells of strange spices from uncharted lands,<br /> - Of blood on unwiped hands,<br /> - Of woman's hair, of ripe flamboyant flowers,<br /> - Of buildings leaping to the displaced skies,<br /> - Of all the body's and soul's mad merchandise<br /> - Sold through the crowded unremitting hours;<br /> - Sounds of innumerable singings since the dawn<br /> - Came dancing and, her gown withdrawn,<br /> - Her white breasts blinded night's most impotent eyes;<br /> - Cracked murmurs of pale harlots in their beds,<br /> - Who have paid more than gold for nothing bought;<br /> - The mumbling of old women with drooped heads<br /> - Who are defeated though they sternly fought;<br /> - Music and terror and the shock of wings!—<br /> - Not these she knows—colours and sounds and smells,<br /> - The conjoint heavens and the massed hells,<br /> - No, not these things!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Not these she knows,—nor these, nor these:<br /> - The snowdrops under the dark yews,<br /> - The challenge on the young lips borne<br /> - Of brave blackthorn<br /> - Against the jagged teeth and the harsh beard<br /> - Of winter seared.<br /> - Nor primroses washed with sweet dews,<br /> - Nor daffodils where bees are stuck<br /> - Who probe too deeply for their sweet,<br /> - Nor celandine whence they refuse<br /> - To move until they suck<br /> - Their heads drunk and a stupor to their feet.<br /> - Ah the dog-violets on low hills<br /> - And woodland sorrel in deep woods<br /> - And blackbirds with fine yellow bills<br /> - And thrushes of a thousand moods<br /> - And nesting-time when these make rhyme<br /> - Amid the youngling leaves that climb<br /> - On sycamores and chestnut trees!<br /> - Not these she knows, not these!<br /> - She hath not seen the kingfisher<br /> - By willowed waters dart blue fires.<br /> - She hath not seen the skylark stir<br /> - When a sheep's foot came near his nest,<br /> - And rise to lead the morning choirs<br /> - From flushed East to pale West.<br /> - Nor all the blossoms of all fruit,<br /> - Apple and pear and rosy peach,<br /> - Nor, palisaded from man's reach<br /> - Behind a guard of frowning fir,<br /> - Wild cherry tipped with dawn.<br /> - Nor heard grass-belfries chink and chime<br /> - When poplars sway like a slim faun,<br /> - Nor known the tardy oak-tree suit<br /> - His body to the crescent time.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Not these things and not these she knows<br /> - Behind her rampart of pale woes,<br /> - For she with twofold grief is sealed<br /> - From midmost town and outmost field.<br /> - Ah sunset! thou who lying came<br /> - To flood her streets with traitor flame,<br /> - Come thou no more<br /> - With gilded lies!<br /> - Her heart is numbed, her eyes are sore,<br /> - Her heart is troubled with sick shame.<br /> - Open no more<br /> - One fitful instant the wild door<br /> - Which brought one breeze of Paradise.<br /> - In this dun midway where she lies<br /> - Each day a twofold death she dies.<br /> - Thou false and lovely, come no more<br /> - With warm wings touched of Paradise!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="shrift"></a></p> - -<h3> - SHRIFT AMONG HILLS<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - The gaunt stones upright on nude fells<br /> - Alone shall be his gods: naught else<br /> - Hold his urgent blood and sense<br /> - Subdued in proud stern reverence.<br /> - Only to these who make their house<br /> - Among clean winds he bends his brows.<br /> - On their austere lips he shall place<br /> - The spent passions of his face.<br /> - The cupped midnight like a great bowl<br /> - Shall lave him. He shall go forth whole.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="courage"></a></p> - -<h3> - COURAGE THE DREAMERS<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - (<i>For Anthony Bertram</i>)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - We swing our swords against the bare<br /> - Bleak brows of granite. Yea, we dare.<br /> - We of clay limbs, armed with frail rhyme,<br /> - To taunt the passive globes that stare<br /> - From the eye-sockets of stern Time.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Though our long anguish may not dint<br /> - His towering flanks, yet from this flint<br /> - Our swords strike such fierce sparks of light,<br /> - The moon is blanched, the fool stars stint<br /> - Their weak flames at the crest of night.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Yea though we bleed from crown to heel,<br /> - Yea though the points of our split steel<br /> - Make futile glories and then die<br /> - Against Time's blear immensity,<br /> - Yet for black woe there shall be weal!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Stauncher than Time our dream is built.<br /> - Despair not, human dreamers, for<br /> - We shall prevail after much war.<br /> - Yea, the poor stump of our sword's hilt<br /> - At length shall be Time's conqueror!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="noindent"> -A number of these poems are reprinted from <i>Voices</i>, <i>Coterie</i>, the -<i>Nation</i>, the <i>English Review</i>, the <i>Englishwoman</i>, <i>To-day</i>, <i>Colour</i>, -the <i>Apple</i>, the <i>New Witness</i>, the <i>Sphere</i>, the <i>Saturday Westminster</i>, and -other journals; and from "A Queen's College Miscellany," "The -Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany," and Messrs. Palmer and -Hayward's "Miscellany of Poetry." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t4"> -THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LTD. LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shepherd Singing Ragtime and Other -Poems, by Louis Golding - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHEPHERD SINGING RAGTIME *** - -***** This file should be named 55963-h.htm or 55963-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/9/6/55963/ - -Produced by Al Haines -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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